


Deductive Method

by tortoisegirl



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Case Fic, Crime Fighting, Detectives, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-01
Updated: 2010-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoisegirl/pseuds/tortoisegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the beginning of their partnership, Dan thinks of Rorschach as the violent and efficient brawn to back up his brainy, gadgety ways.  Then he's forced to re-evaluate how he thinks of his partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deductive Method

The first man goes down easily, a hit to the jaw and another to the knee sending him to the ground with a scream, the semi-automatic he was just (very illegally) purchasing skittering into a pile of garbage. Dan easily dodges the misaimed punch from the second man. Thrown off balance, the man stumbles into the wall, giving Dan the opening to grip the back of his head and smash it into the brick. He crumbles into an unconscious heap beside his whimpering companion.

Dan steps away from the wall, panting. He hisses and rolls his shoulder; that last hit jostled something in a way muscles are not meant to be jostled.

A shadow falling across the alley snaps him back into defensive mode, jerking his head up to scan the crisscross of fire escape above him. The silhouette peering over the edge is familiar, though. Daniel relaxes as the figure descends the stairs, feet making only the faintest sounds of impact on the metal. He frowns at the post-fight appearance; it’s not like Rorschach to sit out a fight. “Were you planning on stepping in at any point, or just enjoying the show?”

Rorschach steps out of the line of shadows, the very picture of menace even with what Dan recognizes as a relaxed stance. “You had it under control. I was confident you could handle things on your own.”

Through the annoyance and the dull ache in his shoulder it occurs to Dan that Rorschach’s teasing him. He’s in no mood to decipher this phenomenon, or humor it, and instead silently fishes his supply of rope from a pouch, handing a length to his partner.

“Was out collecting information,” Rorschach informs him as he loops the binding around the unconscious man’s wrists. “Got a good tip.”

Dan keeps his eyes carefully on his own (conscious, but very out of it) captive. He’s no stranger to violence, of course, but when witnessing his partner’s interrogation techniques he always has to remind himself that that level of brutality is part of the job, even if he personally doesn’t partake in it. As Rorschach’s proven many times over, a broken limb can be infinitely more effective than a firm word. All the same, he doesn’t mind leaving that kind of work to his partner. A tip would explain Rorschach’s relatively good mood tonight, at least. “Oh? Let’s hear it.”

“Gang fight last night in Morningside Park. Heard about it?”

“Yeah, I saw something on the news. Two dead.” He straightens up to face Rorschach, both criminals now fully secured. “Didn’t sound like anything more than your usual dispute. Territory, or old grudges.”

“More than that, it seems. One of the ones killed wasn’t a local. Worked for the Salazar drug ring. We’ve dealt with them before- they import drugs, mostly cocaine, into Philadelphia from South America. Large amount of it ends up here.”

Dan remembers. The organization first came to their attention last year when marijuana laced with their much stronger product hit the streets, resulting in a string of high schoolers being hospitalized for overdoses. That’d been the first time Rorschach’s violence really alarmed him, when he found out that the stuff was being sold to kids. “I thought they were finished when Big Figure went down.”

“No, unfortunately. They were dormant in New York without Big Figure to back them, but were still active in Philadelphia.” Rorschach bends to retrieve the gun jettisoned earlier; slides out the magazine in a smooth motion, empties three bullets into his palm before pocketing the whole set. “Someone new must be employing them to get the drugs into the city again.”

Dan nods. “Right. Well, the police station is on the way to Morningside. Let’s get these guys in and we’ll check it out.”

Rorschach agrees with a grunt.

One of the bound men surfaces to consciousness with a groan and a muttered swear. Rorschach silences him with a kick to the ribs.

\-----

The park is an anomalous river of black below the Owlship, spots of lamplight glowing along the footpaths between the trees no match for the sharp neons and fluorescents forever moving through the city that never sleeps.

The news report didn't give any details- they rarely do with this type of violence, all too common- but Rorschach's information directs them to the north end of park, to a parking lot bordered by a field and a patch of trees.

"This isn't your usual place for this kind of stuff," Dan observes as they angle towards the park, mass of darkness sharpening into individual trees and buildings with the descent. "I mean, this neighborhood- not exactly a hot spot for street gangs."

"Agreed,” Rorschach says. “It points to more than just gang activity, something bigger. Especially if it was anything like last time." He bristles, undoubtedly recalling the havoc last wreaked by this particular group. "It has to be someone with money financing it. Maybe someone new to the game, someone who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty in the seedier parts of town."

Daniel sets Archie down along the treeline. In the park yellow police tape strung between lampposts is the only remaining sign of incident, the grittier remnants of a murder scene cleaned up earlier that day, swept aside for the comfort of the upper crust park patrons. The dim lamplight, too, casts everything in a watery yellow light that keeps the details soft and inoffensive.

They duck the tape into the demarcated area. Rorschach flicks on his flashlight and makes an initial sweep of the area, light sliding over stained asphalt and trampled grass.

"Rorschach, come look at this," Dan calls. From his belt he produces his own flashlight, silver and noticeably more elaborate than Rorschach’s, and trains it on the ground. A click, and Rorschach makes a small sound of surprise as the asphalt glows blue under the beam, mottled with darker patches. Dan allows himself a small smile. "It's a UV light. The traces of blood left will absorb the light, so we’ll be able to see it even after the police have hosed everything down. The dark patches there are where the blood was." More spots bloom over the ground as he moves the beam.

"This is good," Rorschach says. "This'll be helpful, Nite Owl." He sounds genuinely pleased.

Blue skitters across the ground as Dan drops his arm. "Hey, I can take the reigns on this part if you want.” Rorschach cants his head towards him, inkblots questioning. Dan shrugs. "I mean, you must have done a lot to get the tip. I can, you know, do this part."

With a vague sound Rorschach readjusts his own flashlight in his palm and turns away. Taking it as agreement, Daniel sets to scanning the ground.

The scene is fairly expected: two dark pools where two bodies bled out, ringed with smaller flecks that speak to movement, activity. Frowning, he wonders about the murder weapon, and looks up to ask Rorschach if he heard any word on that.

His partner is a few hundred yards away beside a small structure- a restroom, it looks like- running a hand along the doorframe. Inspecting his fingers, then reaching to root around in the building’s gutters. Dan watches him for a moment, then turns back to his own enterprise, unconcerned. He can get the information later; he was the one to suggest he head this part of the detective work, anyway.

He twists the head of the flashlight to widen the beam. It’s rare that he gets to use his gadgets so soon after making them. Or at all, as he thinks of the collection gathering dust in his basement, all brilliantly engineered and fairly useless. He and Rorschach very often get by on just bare hands and brute strength, but Dan’s glad when his particular expertise can come in handy.

The gruff monotone calling his name pulls him out of his thoughts. Rorschach is ducking back under the tape, something twisted in his fingers.

“Found something.” He holds it out on a splayed palm: a bandana, a stained, faded blue thing worn thin in patches. “Gang identifier, most likely. Hurm…I don’t know this one.” He runs his thumb over the worn fabric. “Common color, though. South Side Ghosts, Latin Nation, TBK, Bloodrunners. Heh. Always found it funny that a gang with _blood_ in the name would use blue instead of red.”

Ignoring Rorschach’s questionable sense of humor, Daniel rubs at his sore shoulder. He can practically see the gears grinding in his partner's head, mapping the fastest way to tear through every gang member in the city.

Figures, that Rorschach would luck out the first place he looks.

“Where was it?” he asks.

“In the gutter over there,” he nods back to the innocuous-looking building, “shoved in there. Look, there’s powder here. There were probably drugs wrapped in this.”

Daniel swings his light up to the clue. “Quinine and powered vitamins would glow under UV. If it is cocaine it was cut with something other than those.”

Rorschach collects some of the residue on the tip of his index finger, hooks his thumb under the mask and pulls it up just enough to touch the substance to his tongue. He makes one of his usual non-verbal sounds.

“And,” Daniel goes on, as this is happening, “those stains there are blood, but we don’t really need the light to guess that.” His lips twist into a wry smile. “Blood on his hands, I guess.”

“Actively bleeding, if the blood trail leading that way is anything to-”

“Blood trail?” Daniel interrupts, eyes suddenly sharp. “I haven’t even told you what I found yet.”

 _I haven’t even found any blood trail yet._

“I saw it when you were first showing me the light,” Rorschach says, conversationally, still examining the bandana. His mask is back in place. “We would have checked there sooner or later, anyway. If someone needed to hide compromising substances, get away quickly, it’s the closest place. They probably came back later to retrieve the drugs, left this behind.”

Daniel glances at the building in question, at the piece of fabric, back at Rorschach. “Yeah,” he says. He can’t quite get his voice to sound the way it usually does. “You’re right, that makes sense.” He extends his hand to take their scrap of a clue. “I can take a look at that at home, see if I can get anything off of it.”

Rorschach hesitates. “You’re sure? Two sets of eyes would be more useful for this.”

Dan pulls out a small plastic bag, plucks the bandana from Rorschach’s hand and seals it up inside. “No, I’ll be fine. If you could ask around some more about who else was at the fight we could get a pretty good heading.” Snaps the pouch closed, evidence tucked inside, and looks back up at the swirling mask. “Sound good?”

Rorschach slips his hands in his pockets. “Sounds good.”

\-----

They agree to meet two nights later, giving them both a solid stretch of time for their separate investigations.

Daniel sleeps well into the late morning the next day. After a leisurely breakfast he heads out to the newsstand and buys a selection of newspapers, then to the library to page through the previous day’s papers and photocopy the relevant articles. Back at the brownstone any article with mention of gangs or drug trade or crime syndicates is cut out and placed aside, after which the sports sections is browsed and a few clues on the crossword completed. When the coffee has finished brewing he pours himself a mug, collects his clippings, and heads down to the Nest to get started.

Two hours later he and the paperwork have migrated back up to the kitchen in the hopes that the change of scenery will stem the growing throb at this temples. On the counter is spread the blue bandana, next to it a shallow dish holding the white powder collected off the cloth. It's definitely cocaine, determined by a quick touch to the tongue. It also has a strangely sweet taste to it, a peculiar fact noted and filed away as important. A layer of newspaper clippings coats the kitchen table, along with sheets of typewritten material and his own handwritten observations and thoughts.

Sitting at the table, Daniel takes a gulp of coffee. He circles a name in red on the newsprint, shuffles out the list headed Known Dealers, and runs his fingers down the names. Frowns, and moves to cross an X through the circled name. Releases a frustrated breath and pulls another sheet of newspaper towards him, pen in hand, and keeps looking.

He wonders what Rorschach is doing. He thinks of brutality and broken fingers, and of a trail of blood he didn’t follow, and he wonders...

Pushes it aside in favor of the evidence laid out in front of him.

The old notes from the Big Figure case are dug out of a box in the Nest, notebook paper scrawled with hideout schemas and newsprint covered in familiar red markings, to be scoured for any bit of insight there.

While reading through the notes he tries not to think about how this is the third criminal fraternity to regain power since being brought down with Big Figure. One weapons dealer simply relocated to Newark, close enough to cause them trouble and far enough away that there’s always something more pressing demanding their time. Just last month a familiar name in the prostitution business resurfaced in whispers among the city’s working girls. And now this, two dead and a renewed supply of narcotics likely pouring into the city, all because of a group he thought they were rid of.

It had felt so _good_ taking down Big Figure, knowing he was ridding the city of such a large blight in one swoop, and now, less than a year later…

He rubs at his temples and tries not to think about.

Gang names, places names, drugs with so many street names. Blue threads pulled from faded cloth, threads of information teased from the mass of evidence, all tenuous and fraying and refusing to connect. Coffee mug refilled throughout, a hurried meal swallowed somewhere in there, and hours pass.

Through his tired vision the sea of print is starting to form disorienting patterns whenever he looks at it, formless but all taunting. Even from across the room, leaning against the counter, lines rise and fade in a shifting maze that fills him with a flat gray anger he can’t quite explain. He turns away from the table and takes a long time to clean his glasses before turning back.

He’s been debating going out to patrol ever since evening fell, bandying the fact that he needs to work on this with the sudden urge to hit something. The issue is decided when another attempt to dive back into it all sends the frustration spiking into something hot and dangerous, and he’s forced to shove away from the table before he does something stupid with the fruits of the day’s work, sparse though it is.

Leaving everything as it lies he heads down to Nest, pulls on his costume, and tries to make his mind go blank.

\-----

Nite Owl increases the pressure on the man's throat, fingers leaving bruises in the yielding flesh there, wooden slats of the fence groaning as the man presses back into it. His eyes are wide and watering, his mouth gaping as he sucks in what air he can get through the clench of Nite Owl's fingers. He twists his lower half in an attempt leverage, blue and white square of cloth hanging against his hip catching on Dan's belt as he wastes energy on his fruitless struggles. Dan jams a knee into the punk's leg, digs the knuckles of his other hand into his chest. He waits until the man is sufficiently terrified before loosening his grip just enough.

"Don't lie to me again," he snarls, ruthlessly intimidating as he leans right into man's blanching face. "Who's the connection to Salazar?"

"I swear to god, I don't know!"

Daniel breaks the punk's nose.

He repeats the question over the wailing, but the man's barely breathing properly anymore and anything he tries to say comes out as wordless babbling, and he's sobbing by the time Daniel's had enough and drops him down to the pavement.

Fuming and feeling like his head is about to crack open, Daniel takes off down the alley, not knowing where he's heading. He's only gone a block when there are footsteps echoing off the buildings from behind him; someone chasing him, shouting his name after him. Daniel whirls around, anger bubbling to irrational levels, and he's sure he going to lose it if _anyone_ tries to give him more shit tonight-

But it's Rorschach who slows to a stop in front of him, tilting his head up in a familiar gesture, though right now Daniel's in no state to decode inkblots and abstruse body language.

For a second he's disappointed that it's not someone he can vent his anger on with a good pummeling. "Oh," he offers lamely. "Hi."

Nothing else he can think to say (or wants to say), so turns without further comment and continues his march down the alley. Rorschach falls into step beside him, easy as anything.

"Heard you were out tonight."

"Yeah. I know were weren't supposed to meet until tomorrow, but I-" He casts around for an excuse, but his mind is still buzzing and the only thing he can find is the truth. He keeps his voice hard, unapologetic, bordering on defensive. "I wasn't getting very far with the stuff at home. Thought I'd...I don't know. Talk to people. Get something done out here."

"Hrrn. No need to explain."

Some of the anger evaporates at that. No, he wouldn't have to explain. Not to his partner.

He heaves in a breath and lets his pace relax.

“Glad I found you anyway. I found one of the people involved in the murders.”

Daniel stops short, boots scuffing the pavement, breath suddenly caught in a dry throat as he watches Rorschach stop too and turn back to face him.

"But..." Daniel stutters, brain reeling.

 _But I haven't told you what I've found yet._

 _But I haven't got a goddammed clue what to tell you in the first place._

 _But how the hell could you figure this out when I couldn't even-_

"...the evidence, it's all back at my place still, how...?"

“I saw the it at the scene last night, remember? That powder substance, you tasted it?”

“Yeah, it was sweet, cut with powdered sugar, but lots of dealers-”

"Not powered sugar. It was mannitol, a different type of sweetener. Used to be made from a substance extracted from flowers, and used to be expensive to get in the States. Dealers cuts their product with it so they can tout it as "designer drugs", charge more for the fancier sounding cutting agent. The stuff's made cheap in labs now, but no one's going to mention that if they can get more money for the flower-extract story. Lets the people shooting up in penthouses think they're any better than the ones doing it next to a dumpster."

Daniel blinks at him as his brain struggles to keep up. He found out all of this in one night, and with just one taste of the stuff, and isn't it Daniel who's supposed to be the one who-

"Only a few dealers in the city are catering to this designer drug niche," Rorschach goes on, unaware of his partner's disorientation. "One of them was treated at the clinic on Orchard Street the night of the fight. A knife wound to the ribs. And a slash on his hand."

This is too much to cut through the dulling sludge that's been building in Daniel's mind all day, but he manages to latch on to one thing: there's a name, a person, an actual channel for all this frustration. Something to be done that's not just useless thrashing.

"You haven't gone after him yet?"

"No. I wanted to wait until both of us could."

Daniel sets his shoulders as the anger solidifies into blissful purpose. "Yeah. Let's get the bastard."

\-----

The sound of glass shattering accompanies the impact of the door crashing open, weak wood and lock giving easily under Nite Owl's boot. Beyond the splintered door a man shouts and crunches over the broken glass dropped from his bandaged hand, all indignant rage as he storms towards the doorway. His mouth freezes around the obscenities as he processes the two figures looming shoulder-to-shoulder there.

"Shit," he breathes, and he stumbles back until he runs against a sagging couch.

Nite Owl steps forward, and the man doesn't even bother running.

\-----

Daniel presses his palms over the domes of the goggles, hot around his eyes, to block out the Owlship's lights. He's irritably tapping his foot, his boots loud on the metal flooring, and he knows it's annoying Rorschach but he can’t bring himself to care. The arrest exorcised much of the earlier negativity but there's something new (because there always is, always will be, no way to just make it all _stop_ ) to weigh heavy on his mind. He swivels the pilot's chair to face the rear of the ship, tries to focus on Rorschach studying the map tacked to the back wall there instead of the bleakness of the abandoned lot outside the windows, still tapping his foot because he can't keep still.

Rorschach looks over his shoulder at the nervous twitch. "Stop that. We did well tonight. He's getting jail time for dealing, and he witnessed the murders. You saw what a wreck he was. The police will get the testimony about the fight out of him."

A hollow reassurance. "Just about the fight though. We need the connection to Salazar, not some small time dealer and a handful of gangsters, and he didn't know shit about that. For God's sake, they _blindfolded_ him to take him to meet the distributor. How the hell are we supposed to get anything on this guy with this level of paranoia?"

"We're not in the dark here, Nite Owl. He gave us information."

And Daniel's about to scoff, about to spit out _And what do you expect me to get out of that?_ , when everything from the past two days surfaces and flashes in his mind; brilliance and brutality, yes, but all strangely displaced, and there were so many trails he didn't follow... Swallows down the words and rises to stand next to his partner, watching him with a careful eye.

"Said he met the contact in Morningside," Rorschach begins, placing a finger on the map. "They left from the park's east exit, and the park was on their right when they started driving- means they were going south. Then he was blindfolded for about ten minutes until they reached the distributor's place. Hurm. Ten minute drive south,” He drags his finger accordingly, covering roughly two miles in scale, and lands midway through the Upper West Side. "He said it was a moneyed place, a brownstone or townhouse. It fits." He taps the spot and cocks his head, bodily equivalent of a frown. “That’s your neighborhood, isn’t it? Not a typical area for a prospective drug lord to set up.”

Dan furrows his brows, equally as confused, nodding in agreement. “Yeah…I mean, some vandalism or kids being stupid now and then but…”

He stops, realizing the blunder. Turns to his partner in a slow arc that is so very incongruous with the sudden frantic pounding in his chest.

“I never told you where I live.”

There's nothing of the reactions Daniel would expect when Rorschach looks up at him; none of the embarrassment or contrition or agitation over this sudden development, this slip. Just more of the same stoic air, and a cant of the head that says clear as a bell _You really need to ask?_ He completes the picture with a shrug and turns back to the map. “You told me enough. Told me that the Owlship is stored underground and requires a tunnel to get into the air. You take Archie west past Central Park after patrols. Abandoned tunnels branching from the 1 subway line in the Upper West Side fit the requirements. Only place for it, really.” He spares a half glance towards Daniel, dumbstruck beside him. “You should be more careful with your personal information. Anyone who’d overheard you might have been able to deduce that.”

“Yeah,” Dan says quietly, distantly. “Anyone.” The words seep into him like heat, potent enough to send the carefully constructed supports of their partnership wavering, compromised already as they are. An observation and a throwaway comment, and Rorschach was able to figure out where he lives. _Damn, he's good_. The idea feels more comfortable in his mind than any other he's had over the past few days, he realizes with a touch of incredulity.

"Nite Owl?" Rorschach asks, something like anxiety tinting his voice. "Not angry are you?"

"Angry?" he repeats. "No." And he's a little surprised to find that it's true; if there's any anger there it's not directed at Rorschach. Dan wants to laugh suddenly, and he breaks into a grin. "No buddy, I'm not mad. It's just surprising, you know." The laugh bubbles up now, light and blithe. "I mean, you don't even know my name, but you-"

He cuts himself off as the new thought hits him with dizzying certainly. He looks at Rorschach with the question clear on his face.

Now the symptoms of embarrassment Dan was expecting earlier: shifting weight, a short look his direction then back at the map, staring like he doesn't want to look anywhere else. Daniel's eyes widen, and he's not breathing anymore. Rorschach dips his head. "I started keeping track of aviation fuel sold to private citizens out of LaGuardia when we heard the rumor Big Figure was trying to skip town in a private plane. Got suspicious when one Daniel Dreiberg-" -and Dan flinches at that, a dead giveaway- "was making regular purchases. Looked into it." He pauses to regard Daniel, shapes changing hurriedly over the mask, and he looks only a fraction less distressed than Daniel feels. "The pilot's license was on file. You told me you earned yours in '63. That with the suspicions about where you live..." A shrug. "It fit together."

And with that the supports are gone, suddenly no more than heat-weakened metal bending under the pressure of this new reality. Everything shifting, ringing in his head as they warp and twist around him, around all they've done together, casting new shadows and opening new planes of light.

(Solved clues unfairly ascribed to luck, cases that could have- would have- gone faster if Dan had listened and seen what was right in front of him, not been so blind to-)

(And Rorschach's reticence about his personal life, once written off as the side effect of a stolid mind to go along with the brutish violence, suddenly so different because he must have thought Daniel would be able to piece together much more from the tiniest of details just like he could, just like he-)

(And every detail he _has_ offered, glimmering gestures of trust every one, and ones Daniel might have never recognized because he just wasn't _seeing_ -)

Dan feels like he’s being hung upside down, all the blood rushing to his head, and yet it feels like he's right where he's supposed to be.

He blinks, and Rorschach is still staring at him. Still shifting on his feet. "Nite Owl. You can-," he begins. "I wouldn't-" Restarting, stumbling over his words, and this is almost too much for Dan. "It's safe, with me."

Those words curl out to fit perfectly in this newly-shaped world. Daniel exhales; he hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath. "I know." And the laugh is back, loud and enveloping them as it echoes off the walls. "It's okay, buddy. Really." The truth, down to its core, but it's not enough. Daniel gulps. "Hey, Rorschach, I'm uh- I'm really glad we're working together."

And there’s something like surprise in the sudden change of the inkblots, all contracting inward like an inhalation, but surely Daniel must be imagining that. "Likewise, Nite Owl." The ink slides over the angles of his cheeks, circles and swirls there. The quiet spins out as they face each other for a moment more, though not quite so quiet with the lingering overtones of laughter and words spoken like a truth they're reaching for the first time still ringing in Dan's ears, and everything just fits.

"So," Daniel says, authoritative even with the dopey smile he can't seem to get rid of. He straightens up in front of the map, back to business. "Tell me what you think about this."

\-----

A week later, and the worktable in the Nest is once again covered in red-marked newspaper and info printouts and looseleaf covered in notes, this time scrawled with two sets of handwriting. Rorschach prowls back and forth in front the table as he talks through what they have, voice moving easily through gang names, place names, drugs with so many street names. From the steps leading up to the kitchen Daniel watches him with an absentminded smile.

Rorschach catches sight of him and stops short. "Are you planning on helping me with this Daniel, or are you just going to keep grinning like an idiot?"

Daniel keeps grinning like an idiot. "Didn't want to interrupt. Besides, you've got things under control."

Rorschach snorts, but there's no rebuke there; no refutation either, Dan notices. He tilts his head thoughtfully, and Dan can practically see the gears grinding in his partner's head, sorting through and weaving together all the evidence. "One name keeps reappearing in all of this. Anthony Rizolli. He worked for Big Figure." A pause while Daniel's mind works through all of this too. "Goes by The Underboss now."

"The Underboss, huh?" He gets up now to shuffle through the papers on the table, extracts the photocopied police records with the familiar name (yes, he remembers, that name _has_ come up a lot) and another sheet with a list of addresses. "Think we should check it out?"

"He's likely an important player in this. A candidate for the backer of the whole operation, even."

Daniel looks at Rorschach standing at his shoulder. "Shaping up to be another Big Figure, huh?” Big Figure all over again: hours-long stakeouts, strings of informants (only half of them useful), puzzling together a case from whatever they can get, weeks of near misses and close calls and more headaches and injuries than he cares to remember, and it all could mean nothing a year from now...

Daniel's smile widens to a grin. “Hell, I'm up for a challenge. He’s no match for us anyway."


End file.
